Untitled article by H. F. PHELPS

The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Third-day, November 12, 1867

REFORM.

By H. F. PHELPS

LETTERS are simply the representatives of sounds, and these, combined, form words, and these convey to the mind an idea. So with the word at the head of this article. It suggests to the mind, if applied to man, that he is in some way deformed; that something is wrong; that his condition is for the worse and not for the better; that he needs a change from the worse to the better; that he needs to be restored to a former good state, a state that perhaps he has once enjoyed but now does not enjoy. The word in itself suggests volumes, taken merely as a word; but let us take it as a command given by some one who has a right to command, and then what does it bring to our mind?

By that simple word we are exhorted to reform; exhorted to change our course, for we are going the wrong way. Exhorted? Nay, commanded, to reform—from what? That is the question; it can be answered in a thousand ways. We need a reform in living taken all together. In eating and drinking: in what we eat, how much, and how often. The same may be said of drinking. I need not say we need a reform as to those tea and coffee pots; that even those flesh-pots need to be cast aside; those rich gravies, pies and cakes, filled with spices, and shortened with the oil of that ever-to-be-detested animal, so filled with disease.

I need not even say that we need a reform concerning that tobacco-box. Put it to a better use; fill it with beans, and let the little ones have it for a rattle-box—but clean it first. And that pipe too; throw it away. Or if you wish to put it to some good purpose, just burn it out and put it to the same use that Newton did: blow up soap bubbles, and show the children the beauties of the rainbow, and teach them the cause of it.

We need to reform in our labor, in our apparel.

But we will come a little closer, and speak of spiritual things. Nay, but these things of which we have spoken are of vital importance, for an individual indulging in these cannot discern spiritual things, but we should not dwell too much upon these to the exclusion of others of just as much importance.

Perhaps some of us need to reform in our families. We need to guard well that tongue, that temper; that face, even, needs to carry a different look. It should bear the impress of love. Our characters may need reforming, all through and through. There are also some other things we may need to reform. That habit of being irregular in attendance at the house of God. That family altar may need repairing, if not rebuilding; there may be need of more life, more energy, more zeal, in this duty. That mother may need to throw her influence fully into the scales; may need to join her prayer with that of the father; for children think a great deal of what mother does. We might dwell for hours upon this word and then not exhaust its fund of worth, but we wish to notice another.

REFORMER.

This word primarily signifies one who effects a reformation or amendment; as a reform of manners, or abuses. We can all be reformers, indeed we must be if we escape those awful judgments soon to be visited upon the world of the ungodly. If we would escape the fate of the unrighteous man, we must reform in all these things mentioned, and perhaps a thousand other ways, for look where we will, within or without us, we see the need of a change. We are far below what man once was, far below what we might be, indeed, far, very far, below what we must be in order to see the King in his beauty, and partake of those joys that await the righteous. May God help us all, writer and reader, to bear the character of the reformer.

H. F. PHELPS.

Pine Island, Minn.